When will the Lib Dems wake up to the threat from the
EU?

New powers: Police officers from European countries could soon be able to spy on and arrest Britons in the UK

The new Government is doing some good work in reversing the growing encroachment of state control of our lives which characterised the 13 years of the New Labour regime.

Yesterday we read about proposals from Lord Young to curb health and safety excesses. Today we read details of plans by the Home Secretary Theresa May to unshackle the police from Quangocracy and form filling and instead make them democratically accountable to get results in fighting crime.

Of course it is easy to talk about ‘cutting red tape’, but this Government is already showing itself to be serious. Yet at the same time we learn that the Government is willing to sign up to the EU's European Investigation Order.

This would mean handing over wide-ranging powers to foreign police forces, risking miscarriages of justice and placing British police at their beck and call.

He says: ‘In the Order's current form, it would allow European police to instruct British forces to collect and hand over evidence in relation to foreign investigations. There are no proper limits on the nature of the crimes involved - so they could be trivial, or not even offences under UK law. Do we really want hard-pressed UK forces having to prioritise investigations in other countries, unless they relate to serious crimes?

‘In addition, there are no proper safeguards to protect personal information or bodily samples from British citizens carted off for use in foreign investigations. And the Order even provides legal authority for European police to carry out investigations on British soil.’

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The constant pressure from the European Union for more power is the greatest threat to our new Government.

As Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher warned against her work to roll back the state being put at risk by Socialism ‘through the back Delors’ - a reference to the then President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors.

The same challenge exists for her successor David Cameron – but in many ways it is worse. This coalition includes the Lib Dems who, far from offering resistance to further EU directives, can't get enough of the things.

The Conservative Party is now overwhelmingly Eurosceptic as the behaviour of the EU has got harder and harder to defend. And although small in number, the unreconstructed Tory Europhiles include Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary.

Cameron has proven Eurosceptic credentials - he pulled the Conservative Euro MPs out of their federalist grouping with the Christian Democrats, provoking the wrath of the EU establishment. But in failing to deliver a decisive result at the General Election the British people have left Cameron with one hand tied behind his back.

Even if the Conservatives had been returned with a working overall majority it might not have been easy standing up to Brussels. Yet think how much harder it is standing up for Britain when the EU has the Lib Dems operating as fifth columnists across Whitehall.

The objection to the European Investigation Order is not just a point of principle. It is a practical matter of the burdens we impose on our police force.

Our police should be using their scare resources for the proper priorities. The campaign group Fair Trials International warns that disproportionate requests could consume vast amounts of manpower - for instance trawling through the DNA of plane loads of British holidaymakers.

According to the group: ‘The EIO proposal is far from satisfactory in terms of guaranteeing fundamental rights and ensuring proportionality. In its current form it runs the risk of repeating the injustices and wasted resources which have undermined the European Arrest Warrant's operation.

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‘This is perhaps not surprising given the haste with which it has been produced, the absence of prior consultation by the Member States concerned (at least any transparent or wide-ranging consultation) and the lack of any impact assessment. The text contains no reference to a proportionality test, no requirement of dual criminality, no list of offence categories to take the place of dual criminality checks, no double jeopardy or territoriality bar.’

I want the coalition Government to succeed. The uncertainty of a minority Government lurching from one cliff-hanging Commons vote to the next is not attractive. Nor is an early election.

But if the Lib Dems insist on handing over yet more power to the EU then the price is too high.

The British people as whole have got wise to what the EU is up to. The Lib Dems claim to believe in civil liberties. When will they wake up to the growing threat to our freedom from the EU?